One Texan called them "blue-coated dogs of despotism." They were the federal army, and in Texas after the Civil War they were an army of occupation. Their role in carrying out Reconstruction in Texas was especially difficult because the state had a large voting majority of white former Confederates. The army was essential to the enforcement of loyalist policies and, more controversially, to the electoral success of the Republican party. How the military tried to achieve these ends varied over three major periods corresponding to the tenure of three chief officers: Generals Philip H....
One Texan called them "blue-coated dogs of despotism." They were the federal army, and in Texas after the Civil War they were an army of occupation. T...
At the end of the Civil War, the U.S. government recognized some responsibility for the former slaves that its battles and proclamations had freed. It established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands to foster adjustment to the new economic conditions. Though the bureau initially attempted to transcend the racist beliefs of the nation, it wound up--according to this challenging analysis--embodying them in its very soul. William L. Richter finds that the Freedmen's Bureau failed in its idealistic program, radical for its time, because of the unimaginative bureaucratic...
At the end of the Civil War, the U.S. government recognized some responsibility for the former slaves that its battles and proclamations had freed. It...
